Political Memes

Liberal has a completely different meaning in the US and has for about the last century. Wikipedia article on social liberalism in general and here's one on modern liberalism in the US, but if you don't want to read all that, here's an excerpt:

Modern liberalism in the United States emerged with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s and is the prevailing version of liberalism in the country. It is most synonymous with the ideology known as social liberalism in much of the world, combining in the U.S. version elements of cultural liberalism, American progressivism, civil liberty and social equality with support for social justice and a mixed economy

and a bit later in the same article:

Economically, modern liberalism embraces a role for government to protect against market failures, ensure competition and prevent corporate monopolies, and supports labor rights through the strengthening of public- and private-sector labor unions, collective bargaining, unemployment insurance and minimum wage laws.

So I think perhaps you can see how the term means something completely different there. It's really closer to socdem than classical liberal.

And as a kicker, the US "conservative" party is economically liberal, whereas much of the "liberal" party is not (unfortunately much of the old guard there are more liberal rather than liberal).

TL;DR: Yes, the economic term "liberalism" means "let corpos do whatever the fuck". In the modern meaning of the word politically, it's more "all people are created equal and all deserve to be free".